Category: Muni Diaries Live

Back in 2014, journalist Peter Hartlaub took the stage at Muni Diaries Live to talk about the now-defunct 77X-Candlestick Express, a.k.a., the Muni Booze Cruise. That story is featured in this week’s podcast, and for that reason, we reached out to Peter to see if he had any “episode extras” he could send us. Boy, were we (and now, you!) in for a treat.

Here’s what Peter sent us:

Hello, Muni Diaries friends,

An update since my Muni Diaries tribute to the 77X Candlestick Express:

After the Muni Diary, I ended up going to the last game at Candlestick Park with my dad Phil Hartlaub, sister Toni Kam and aunt Susan Leal. I thought that would be my closure, but I was assigned to cover the last big event at the ‘Stick, Paul McCartney’s concert. I had seats on the field, but snuck up to Upper Box Section 32, and convinced an usher to let me sit in my family seats one more time – even though they were roped off. I listened to “Live and Let Die” and “Hey Jude,” then left.

Our Candlestick seats sit in my parents’ backyard. I’ve already retained a lawyer for the legal fight for them that will ensue between me and my sister when my parents are gone.

I haven’t traveled on a Muni Van Ness line since.

Wow. I love everything about this!!! (I’m willing to overlook the football parts.)

Last weekend we experienced what can best be described as a love letter to San Francisco when we saw more than 200 of you pack into the Elbo Room at Muni Diaries Live. I can’t say that we’ve recovered from election results, and perhaps we never will, but it warms my heart just knowing that there are still people who will cheer for your bus line and root for your success in getting a late-night transfer! Let’s count down the many ways that we celebrated getting from point A to point B.

The photo above is one of the surprising and awesome moments from the show: Grand News Stand owner Courtney Riddle shared her dream of becoming a streetcar driver one day. Look closely and you’ll see that she’s embroidered the Muni worm on her cardigan, and her dress is made from fabric that has streetcar prints on it! That’s some serious dedication. When she shared her streetcar dream with her partner, he won the Best Boyfriend awards by writing a rap song in her honor.

We have some very exciting news to share: Muni Diaries is now a podcast! For awhile now, we’ve wanted to create a podcast from all the great stories that riders like you have submitted to us. Well, we did it!

On the Muni Diaries Podcast, you’ll also hear great Muni stories you might not have heard before. The show features stories from Muni Diaries Live, stories from our archives, and some other great content in the future. To subscribe, find us on iTunes, Google Play, or use this RSS link.

On MuniDiaries.com/podcast, you’ll find the latest episode and episode extras. For this week’s episode (which you should totally listen to), we have a photo of Chris O’s record collection.

We’d like to thank our awesome podcast producer Peter Clarke and J. W. Friedman for writing, playing, and recording the music in the show.

We hope you’ll subscribe to the Muni Diaries Podcast. New episodes will drop every Tuesday, so be sure to subscribe. If you like what you hear, share it with all your podcast-listening friends.Photo by Right Angle Images

Our favorite night of the year is returning tomorrow at the Elbo Room, where we’ll get to see your shiny faces at Muni Diaries Live! We are sold out of online tickets, but have saved some tickets at the door, which opens at 6 p.m.

Twice a year, like parents gone wild, Muni Diaries leaves its forever-LOL social channels and website to fend for itself for a few hours so we can hit the bar: the Elbo Room, to be exact.

We have a really great reason to do it, too: bringing IRL storytelling to the Muni-riding masses. Muni Diaries Live is where we can all laugh, cry, and commiserate over the daily sensory overload that is San Francisco’s colorful public-transit system.

We are swooning over our stellar lineup. At our recent rehearsal, we shed tears of joy, of WTF OMG, and of poignancy — all fantastic signs of a fabulous show to come. Our performers run the gamut of “Hella SF”: from a rising star in drag, to bastions of print media, to self-proclaimed political geeks (just in time for Election Day!), they’re all bringing it on Saturday. And by “it,” I mean cool stories and unique perspectives on our fair city.

So, who’s in?

Future you will thank planning-ahead you for getting tickets ahead of time! They’re available now on Eventbrite, so get ’em while they’re hot.

BART operator Kelly Beardsley lets us in on one little secret about driving BART: passengers love pressing the intercom button to chat with him about annoyances big and small, or even to just shoot the shit with him for no reason at all. Our live storytelling show, Muni Diaries Live, is where you can hear stories that are at once both true and unbelievable. Here’s Kelly recounting the shenanigans over the intercom on one eventful BART ride.

I love intercom calls, they always crack me up. You know on BART at the end there’s that little box that says, In Case of Emergency, Call the Operator?” Sometimes people just push it and just chat me up. Like, “Hey, I noticed you just made another transfer announcement at Lake Merritt Station. I don’t usually hear transfer announcements at Lake Merritt Station for the Dublin-Pleasanton bound passengers. Are you going to make a transfer announcement at Bay Fair?” And i’m just like, “Oh I like to mix it up! I like to make sure people get to where they need to go!” And the guy’s like, “Oh that’s really cool, man, so what other places do you make transfer announcements?”

We get stupid calls, we get fun calls, and we get complaint calls like, “Hey! Hey! There’s this girl and she’s got a bike and she’s eating a burrito and she’s in the handicapped seat!”

If you want to hear stories like this and other true and hilarious tales, come to the next Muni Diaries Live show on Nov. 5!